Marc S. Perlman is the author of the new novel The Riddle of the Trees. He is also a lawyer, and he lives in New York City.
Q: What inspired you to write The Riddle of the Trees, and how did you create your character Jack Miller?
A: I’ve always loved the excitement and cross-border intrigue of espionage novels and thought I might someday try my hand at writing one.
In 2011 I travelled to Eastern Europe to visit the villages where my family came from. While bicycling through the Belavezskaya Forest from Poland to Belarus I realized I had my story. It only took me another 10 years to finally write it!
The inspiration for Jack Miller is me, only more daring and prone to making bad decisions.
Q: How did you research the novel, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?
A: Much of the novel follows my travel itinerary from my 2011 trip to Poland, Belarus and Lithuania. So, many of the place descriptions are from memory, photos and the extensive notes I took while travelling. (I’ve posted some photos of the book locations on my website.)
I also read books, articles and more books and about Belarus, post-Soviet Russia, the Russian and Belarusian intelligence services, Russian and Belarusian prisons, NATO presence in Poland and the Baltics, the Suwalki Gap, and the Holocaust. I also relied on Wikipedia, Google maps, and Yizkor (or remembrance) books written in Yiddish.
I love studying history so the research process was enjoyable. Where I didn’t have good research, I used my imagination and artistic license to fill in the gaps.
Perhaps naively, when doing research for the prison scenes, I was surprised by the level of depravity which still exists in these prisons to this day, and our unpreparedness for a major conflict in Eastern Europe.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: Since the bulk of the novel takes place over a two-week period, I outlined the plot using the page of a calendar, filling in the events for each day. Therefore, when I finished outlining and started writing I did know the ending.
However, early readers quickly let me know that they didn’t appreciate my intentionally ambiguous and suspenseful ending, which they said left them cold. So I went back and wrote a more conclusive and satisfying ending.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?
A: On a light note, I hope readers have fun following along with Jack and Anna on their adventures.
More seriously, I hope the book can help readers appreciate the stifling conditions so many people are enduring around the globe and the oftentimes dangerous sacrifices so many nameless people are making to fight that tyranny. Also, families, like individual people, can bury painful or shameful memories.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Several years ago, a friend and I wrote a children’s book about a gefilte fish which was illustrated by my mother. We’re aiming to publish that this year.
I’ve also started outlining two new novels: one a low-tech sci-fi story and the other a sort of fantasy taking place in New York City and the Adirondack Mountains at the turn of the 20th century.
I’m very excited about both projects but eventually I’ll need to make the difficult decision of which one to focus on first and which one to set aside for later.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I hope to be back on this blog answering questions about my next book in less than 10 years! And, I hope readers enjoy The Riddle of the Trees and spread the word if they do.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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